Abstract

Collaboration is a social and interactive process, where participants join efforts toward a group goal. A Group Support Systems (GSS) can improve the productivity of collaboration work by structuring activities and improving communication. However, knowledge is needed for the faithful appropriation of GSS technology. In this paper we present ongoing research about a supporting framework for a generic GSS that adapts the GSS technology automatically to a logical model of a collaboration process. Drawing on Collaboration Engineering and the logical model, the paper explores the use of an ontology to capture and share knowledge about collaboration. As a result, we present a collaboration ontology that builds a common vocabulary for the key concepts of collaboration and the relations and dependencies between them. A generic GSS can use the ontology to enable knowledge exchange between experts and practitioners. This will increase the potential benefits of a GSS for collaboration.

@inproceedings{
author = {Stefan Werner Knoll and Till Plumbaum and Jan Leif Hoffmann, and Ernesto Wiliam De Luca},
title = {Collaboration ontology: Applying collaboration knowledge to a generic group support system.},
booktitle = {Group Decision and Negotiation Meeting},
year = {2010},
isbn = {978-90-5638-236-0},
pages = {12-26},
location = {Delft, NL}
}